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- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Waseda University
- Image courtesy of
- Waseda University
Description
Without a confirmed title, the precise subject of this Kawanabe Kyosai woodblock print remains unidentified. Kyosai's imagery characteristically oscillates between the comic and the macabre, the sacred and the profane, often within a single composition. He was notably influenced by his early training under Utagawa Kuniyoshi, whose own prints of monsters, warriors, and supernatural scenes left a permanent mark on Kyosai's visual imagination. The Western artist Josiah Conder, who studied painting with Kyosai in the 1880s, documented his teacher's ability to produce finished compositions rapidly and from memory — a spontaneity that translates into the energetic line quality distinguishing Kyosai's prints from more labored contemporaries. This print is executed in the standard polychrome woodblock technique on [washi](/glossary/washi).